EARLY HARP PERFORMANCES
Medieval harp for 12th century works of Hildegard von Bingen with Cappella Clausura.
Renaissance harp, recording ‘Carols for Dancing’ with Renaissonics, produced by WGBH radio for PRI.
Spanish Baroque arpa de dos órdenes in ensembles Trinitas, Exsultemus and Musicians of the Old Post Road for ‘Feliz Navidad!’.
Portable Irish Harp (c.1821) concerts and recording ‘The Egan Irish Harp’ featured on Irish radio’s RTÈ Lyric Feature program.
“From your first words and notes, your historical lecture and performance…were so perfectly attuned to your many listeners’ interests and ears that by the time you finished, the unanimous sentiment was that we had never had a more delightful meeting.”
“As we sat in such splendid surroundings listening to such excellent music we time-travelled in our minds and reconnected with the Regency period with its musical tastes, its fashions, its dress and elegance.”
HARP HISTORIAN
As a scholar, Hurrell’s articles are published in History Ireland, Irish Arts Review, American Harp Journal, Harpesmag (France), HARP (UK), Folk Harp Journal and The Historical Harp Society Bulletin (US). She is the author of the definitive biography on nineteenth-century Irish harp maker John Egan, The Egan Irish Harps: Tradition, patrons and players.
She has taught early harp classes at the Boston Conservatory, Brandeis University, Benslow Music (England), and workshops at Somerset Harp Festival (NJ), UK Harp Festival and for the Historical Harp Society and the American Harp Society.
With academic degrees in harp performance and fine art, Hurrell presents lecture-demonstrations on rare harps in museum collections. A harp consultant to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts since 2002, she recently performed a gallery recital in the MFA’s exhibition Casanova’s Europe on a 1785 French Holtzman harp, and she played an 1895 Erard harp in the museum’s Impressionist Gallery (2018).
She was a guest curator at the Museum of Making Music in California for the exhibition The Harp - A Global Story of Man, Music and Medicine (2013) and Dear Harp of My Country: The Harp Traditions of Ireland and Scotland at the John J. Burns Library, Boston College (2010).
In Ireland, Lord and Lady Rosse invited Hurrell to present a lecture and concert on the family’s 1821 Irish harp at Birr Castle (2012), and for National Heritage Week (2019), she performed period music on a Regency harp in the historic Georgian Newbridge House, Dublin.
Gothic Music Room, Birr Castle, Ireland
Newbridge House, Ireland
LECTURE-DEMONSTRATIONS
‘19th Century Welsh and Irish Harps: Authentic Revival or Invented Traditions?’ Historical Harp Society of America Conference (2023).
‘Origins of the Modern Celtic Harp.’ Somerset Harp Festival (2022).
‘Feminist Harpists & Domestic Rebellion in 19th Century Ireland’. Somerset Online Harp Festival (2021).
‘Renaissance Harps in the 16th Century.’ Zoom webinar, Brandeis University EME (2020).
‘Historical Resonance: the Cobbe Family Harp Legacy.’ Newbridge House, Ireland (2019).
‘An Evening of Music on an 18th century French Harp,’ MFA exhibition Casanova’s Europe (2018).
Art in Tune, Gothic Erard harp, 1895, Impressionist Gallery, MFA (2018).
‘The Victorian Harp,’ Wurlitzer harp c1915, Boston Browning Society (2018).
‘The Dital harp of Edward Light’ c1820, MFA Boston (2018).
‘Griffins, Angels and Swans: Harps in the MFA Collection,’ Boston Harp Society, MFA (2018).
‘Striking Harps in Castles and Museums.’ Historical Harp Society, Connecticut College (2016).
‘From Irish Icon to Royal Instrument: John Egan's Winged-maiden Harp.’ Royal Academy of Music Museum, London, England (2014).
‘History of the Irish Harp via Travels of a Harp Detective.’ Somerset Harp Festival, Parsippany, NJ (2014).
‘John Egan and the Irish Harp Revival.’ Birr Castle, Ireland (2012).
‘History of the Harp.’ United Kingdom Harp Association Festival, Woking, Surrey, England (2012).
‘The Belfast School Harps by Egan.’ Early Gaelic Harp Conference, Boston Conservatory, MA (2011).
‘John Egan and the Irish Harp Revival.’ Burns Library, Boston College (2010).
